A teacher makes eight education predictions for 2017 — some of them dire
Ever year veteran teacher Larry Ferlazzo makes an annual list of education predictions — and here are eight for 2017. Ferlazzo teaches English and Social Studies at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California. He has written eight books on education, writes a teacher advice blog for Education Week Teacher and has his own popular resource-sharing blog.
Read the 2016 predictions and you can see what he got right and what he got wrong. Wrong, for example, was his prediction that Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election, though he was hardly the only way to do so. He also predicted that unions would be dodge a bullet in the form of a Supreme Court case that was attempting to eviscerate them — and that’s what happened.
By Larry Ferlazzo
I have usually approached each new year, and each annual list of education predictions, with an over-riding sense of optimism and hope. Not this year.
Though I strive, and am usually successful, in bringing a positive and upbeat attitude to the classroom each day (it’s really not very hard to do with the students I get to teach), I don’t think I can bring the same mood to many of my education policy predictions for 2017 (though they do contain some bright spots!).
Let me know if you think I’m being overly pessimistic!
* Donald Trump and his new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, will attempt to replicate her disastrous efforts in Detroit throughout the United States. They will ram through a $20 billion voucher program through Congress that will allow states to apply for funds to let parents use them for private or religious schools, and promote charter schools with no attention to their quality, as DeVos did in Michigan. Much of that money will be taken from the Title 1 program, designated to support low-income students and their schools. Some states, like California, will refuse to seek the voucher funds, but others — such as Nevada and Indiana — will pursue it and, and as a result, further weaken their public schools that will–already be devastated by the A teacher makes eight education predictions for 2017 — some of them dire - The Washington Post: